America Partially Beautiful

Sunday was a good day, so-so day for U.S. Soccer.

In Albufeira, Portugal, April Heinrichs recorded her first victory as coach of the U.S. women’s national team, which capitalized on three goals by Cindy Parlow to trounce Portugal, 7-0, in the opening game of the Algarve Cup.

In Birmingham, Ala., goals were less easy to come by. In fact, it took a strike by Ben Olsen two minutes into injury time for the U.S. men’s national team to salvage a 1-1 tie against Tunisia in front of 21,637 at Legion Field.

Parlow’s hat trick was the first of her international career, with her goals coming in the fifth, 11th and 63rd minutes. Also scoring for the U.S. were Shannon MacMillan (sixth minute), Joy Fawcett (22nd), Tisha Venturini (67th) and Julie Foudy (88th).

Siri Mullinix started in goal and earned her first shutout for the national team.

“It’s great to start off such a high-quality tournament with a game like this, especially coming back from my injury,” said Parlow, playing in her first game of 2000 after recovering from a hamstring pull.

In other Algarve Cup matches, the other three teams headed for the Sydney Olympics also won. Sweden edged Denmark, 1-0; China routed Canada, 4-0, with 1999 Women’s World Cup most valuable player Sun Wen scoring twice, and Norway blanked Finland, 2-0.

The U.S. plays Denmark on Tuesday.

In Birmingham, Tunisia appeared ready to hand U.S. Coach Bruce Arena his first defeat of the year after Maher Kanzari gave the North African team the lead in the 78th minute off a pass from 19-year-old Ali Zitouni.

But the U.S. fought back to earn the tie. John O’Brien of Playa del Rey fed Olsen the ball on the right after Tunisia failed to clear it in a scramble and Olsen scored.